How to Make Your Animation Pipeline Look More Like a Hamster City

The hamster city model of a production pipeline (like we use at Timbuktoons) is creative, flexible, colorful and scalable.

The factory line versus the hamster city.
For decades production companies have built pipeline systems to get their content (film, commercial, short, series, webisode, game, etc.) from start to finish. The pipeline is basically a linear system of creating content from idea to finished product, much like the factory assembly line first developed by Henry Ford.

A hamster city, on the other hand, is fun, creative, colorful, flexible, and scalable. You can easily customize and accessorize it at will and still have a system that leads the hamster thru from beginning to end.

Revolutions require new systems.
What happens when…

• …software and hardware become very affordable, powerful, and available?
• …technological advances allow you to skype, Cisco, or Facetime, your way to an LA or NY production meeting from anywhere, even Augusta, GA!?
• …studios or distributed teams from different countries decide to co-produce (as with the Oscar nominated film, Secret of the Kells)?
• …you find yourself in what Seth Godin calls “the land of a million channels” where content is delivered on your TV, internet, smart phone, and a host of other devices?

Rethink your business.
You rethink and offer new services to new markets. You focus on what differentiates your business in order to be noticed in all of the clutter. You customize your pipelines into fun, colorful and unique hamster cities tailored just for your clients.

For example, Timbuktoons has worked with educational, and faith-based non-profit organizations all over the world, providing them with animation and motion graphics services that would have been difficult for them to produce even 5 years ago because of location, budget and time.

Our most valuable asset is our customer service. Our systems make you feel like we’re “right around the corner” even if we’re 3000 miles away.

Enjoy the product AND the process.
Instead of maintaining a rigid system until it breaks, studios need to put as much creativity into the production system as they do in the content they’re creating.

There are well established and logical milestones necessary in each phase of development, pre-production, production, and post-production…but there is plenty of room for customization too.

Our goal at Timbuktoons is to customize the hamster city for each project to maximize customer service, collaboration, and creativity at every step of the process.

Next, I’ll share some stories, tips, and insights on how we build Hamster Cities!

About Timbuktoons
Timbuktoons is a leading pre-production and 2D animation cloud based studio with customers all over the world. Founded in 2003 by animator and illustrator Todd Hampson, they specialize in creating family-friendly media for the broadcast, education and gaming industries.